Making a Difference

With Barack Obama’s inauguration this week, many of us are thinking about how the world is going to change. We’re hopeful, we’re excited, and we want to get involved. Here’s one important way each us can make a little difference. Cooking With Friends is supporting Share Our Strength’s “No Kid Hungry,” a national campaign to end childhood hunger in the United States. We’d love you to be involved in your states, either by making homemade food for the hungry, or donating food to a local food bank, in the month of January.

This month, as you know, Alison is running a “Souper Bowl” in New Jersey to make homemade soup for people who really need it. Here in Madison, WI, we’re launching a food drive to collect food for the hungry. In Wisconsin, nearly 1 in 5 children live in poverty.

If you live in Wisconsin, please contact me directly at shannon@cookingwithfriendsclub.com, to arrange to drop off food. We are working in partnership with the Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin, a nonprofit that distributes food to over 400 food pantries, shelters, and meal sites, helping 78,000 people each year. I’ll be collecting food for the rest of this month, and will deliver it to them directly the first week of February. The Second Harvest Foodbank does not take homemade food. Their most useful items are canned and boxed foods such as tuna fish, peanut butter, canned soups and chilis, tomato sauce, beans, rice, dry pasta, and canned fruit and applesauce.

To hold your own drive, donate individually or learn more, check out www.strength.org. You can type in your zip code, find a local food bank and call to see what kinds of items they need. Thank you for your help!

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About Alison J. Bermack

It all began when I was a child cooking with my dad, the kitchen a magnet for cooking and camaraderie, a refuge from adolescence. I spent countless hours chopping, sautéing and simmering my way through childhood. And now, with three kids of my own, I’m still chopping, but this time through their childhood and often with friends.